My insurance career: A case study.

Where I recount what I accomplished, and what I learned.

Preface.

There are often times when we want to show someone what we accomplished, but we would have to tell a long story. I have been doing this a bunch for Praxis lately, so I decided to make this.

The Story.

In November of 2017, I made a decision that would change my whole life. That was the decision to become an Insurance agent. In under a month, I had my course work finished, and the licensing exam scheduled. I passed the first try and jumped in headfirst. This was my job for 18 months, and I came out with a plethora of skills.

The Stats.

I will now recount rough numbers of what I did in that 18 months.

*They are all approximate numbers based on my production goals, reality, memory, and scarce records.

• 2,000–2,200 calls.
• 6,000–7,000 texts sent.
• 900–1,000 appointments set.
• 600–700 appointments seen.
• 110–120 life insurance policies written.
• 50–60 annuity policies sold.
• $120,000-$140,000 first-year commissions earned.
• 250–300 rolling relationships created.
• 250–300 policies maintained.
• $9,000,000–$10,000,000 life insurance volume sold.
• 80 to 90 public addresses, given to 20–30 people.

What I learned.

This role was very wholistic so I learned a lot in many areas.

If you are a hiring manager, these are all parts of what I bring with me to a company.

How to sell.

It was obviously my primary responsibility to sell products. That is how I made money and paid my bills.

Some of the components of this are the tone of voice, use of body language, shifting the focus in the face of objections, asking questions, and getting small yesses.

This can help me in any role because almost every role involves selling an idea to the client/customer.

Follow through.

To gain trust I had to be consistent. Most people only purchase insurance after they feel they can trust the agent to stick around. I proved this through always being there for them. I did that by setting reminders to follow up on my phone, and physical notes on my daily calendar. I also set reminders to get them anything they needed, including new info or sending out paperwork the same day.

This helps me today, to be a better employee in general. Regardless of my role, I will follow through with the tasks assigned to me.

Define next actions.

This one has helped me in every area of life but it wasn’t something I did naturally before. The goal was to advance the relationship towards the purchase. Therefore I would seek to leave every meeting/end every phone call, with a next action item.

This helps me to clarify what the specific task I am assigned with is, ensuring I complete it the way it should be.

The art of simplicity.

By this, I mean the ability to take super complicated things and make them simple. This was one of my biggest assets in that position. If the client wasn’t confident in what they were buying they would not buy.

This is beneficial to me because I will be able to clearly communicate with customers, co-workers, and leadership.

The art of cold calling.

I had the best record in the agency for call setting early on. This is because I learned to offer two times for the person to set the meeting. I never said can we meet? I said does X or X work better for you? I said, let me pencil that in. I didn’t say let me pen that in, or set that up. This gave them a sense of low commitment, which made it easier to digest. This did end up making it harder for me to keep the appointments at times, but it was part of how I proved my reliability.

This obviously will help me in any sales role or role where similar tasks are required.

Knowledge of how the stock and bond markets work.

This came because my boss wanted us to know more than any other advisors out there. Well at least more than most. He taught us so many concepts such as true ROI, the ability to compare market results to life insurance policies, bond markets, etc. Honestly, we really focused on all the loopholes or negative aspects of all the products we couldn’t sell in order to prove our policies superior. (Note: If you are one of my past clients, I never sold something I wouldn’t buy myself)

This will be helpful for any role with a company in the financial sector.

How to maintain a filing system.

This was hard for me, but after my time in this role I had it down. I would use a lot of sticky notes, and keep files in alphabetic order. I began to shift to all digital towards the end so I could have it all on my phone in case I needed it last moment. This has been helpful in all areas of life and work since then.

Organization is important for any role but is especially helpful for leadership roles, customer service roles, and sales roles.

How to overcome objections.

This helps me in all areas of life as well. If I am doing something, I am doing it with an intention. Having this skill in my toolbox helps me to accomplish what I am seeking more often.

This will help me to be good in any sales role, as well as customer service, and leadership roles.

How to remain calm.

This came in handy for overcoming objections in meetings and taking rejections on the phone. This has helped me as well in many other areas of life and is a valuable skill that I will always carry with me.

This comes in handy a lot for customer success roles, as well as management because I need to remain calm to fix any situation issues.

How to tell stories.

Telling stories was a big part of making the sale. People relate to stories and this was super helpful. I oftentimes find myself making my stories more in-depth than need be now because I am still in the mindset I need to hit the extra points that help people connect with me, so they will buy. This annoys my friends sometimes.

This would be very helpful in any marketing role, as well as leadership. Marketing requires telling good stories.

How to build rapport.

I would really call this how to deepen a relationship super quickly. I didn’t bullshit people and simply build rapport to make a sale. I genuinely enjoyed meeting and getting to know each person I met. This was often the source of me taking longer to close a deal; I spent way more time gabbing with them instead of getting business done.

Ultimately I think the fact I really enjoyed meeting them is what helped me to be superbly good at this. People could sense that I really cared. It's done by asking good questions and listening intently.

I will use this always, but it would be specifically helpful for any leadership role, as well as customer support roles.

How to listen.

The only times I made sales were when I listened to what they wanted. They told me what they wanted through the stories they told, the dreams they shared, and the complaints they had. Do this to be successful in life, not just sales.

This will help in all areas because if I can’t listen how will I know what the customer, co-worker, or leadership wants. Specifically helpful in customer success and leadership.

How to ask questions.

There are two kinds of questions. Open-ended and closed-ended. They both have a purpose, and you need to use both. Open-ended questions help get their thoughts and feelings, which leads to more questions and the right data. Closed-ended questions are for helping you to get a clear verbal agreement or disagreement from the client. If you can’t ask good questions you won’t do well in sales, and will probably not have an interesting podcast.

Helpful for sales, leadership, and customer success. Also, with many applications in operations.

How to gain micro-agreements.

Yes, that’s a thing. Getting small agreements and yesses leads to a larger yes at the end of the presentation. This is also important in dating for example. If you can get a girl to agree to the smallest thing, she will ultimately be more willing to say yes to THE question.

Helpful in making sales, and generally getting people to be on the same wave-length as you. Operations roles require this.

Basic income trust knowledge.

I say basic, but its probably intermediate knowledge. This was super important for us to provide value to our clients. Suffice to say, you should all get a trust even in your twenties and thirties you should consider it.

Helpful in any financial sector role.

How to recognize BS.

My personal trust in the general honesty of people was brought back to reality in this job. It turns out a lot of people don’t do what they say they will. I learned how to know the difference between big talkers and people who follow through.

Applicable to leadership, and general sales process.

How to speak in public.

I’m still not an expert, but I spoke many times in front of 20–30 people to inform them about news within the organization. These were all my clients. If I didn’t impress them I would have a harder time setting a meeting with them.

All areas because speaking well is one of the most important skills a person can have to convey their message.

Persistence.

Not one of the contacts I met did I give up on until I set an appointment. If I wanted to meet with them, I would keep trying back at whatever intervals needed. If I asked if I could call back in a week, bet your skis I would be calling back in a week. This was a large attribute of my success.

All roles. If someone gives up in any position they will not succeed. You must be able to withstand a real beating from unexpected turns.

Email communication.

While it has been refined through my Praxis participation, this was a super huge foundation for that. Sending lots of emails every day helped me get decent at it.

Any company that uses email for communication requires this. If I may say, most people are actually not good at this.

Creating marketing copy.

Something I did often was creating letters that were compliant to send out to the members to get some low hanging fruit. Doing this and tracking my results helped me to see what worked and what caught their attention, but was also genuine. If they felt it was simply a ploy to get them to call me, they would smell it and steer clear.

Obviously helpful for any marketing position, but also very helpful for web design, and leadership in the marketing industry.

Accounting

I’m no CPA but I had to keep track of a lot of stuff in order to make sure my taxes were good at the end of the year. In doing this and working closely with my CPA I learned this. At this point, I could probably track the books for any smallish business without too much guidance.

Helpful for financial sector roles and especially important for individuals in operations.

How to build spreadsheets.

This was something I really liked once I learned. The power of Ecell is still something I marvel at. I’ve used this ability many times.

This can have many applications across all companies and sectors.

Multi-task managing.

This has been huge. On average I had 100 to 150 next actions to take when I was in this job. Somehow I managed to keep it all in order. It must be the fact that I got good at it, that I am consistently disappointed in my peers’ inability to manage tasks. I often take it upon myself to remember a few of their tasks that involve me. ??

Operations, sales, customer success, and marketing all require this. It is of supreme value to leadership.

Creating invoices.

Having some part-time staff taught me this. This has helped me in starting my tea business, (Che Mate)

Typically used by leadership, or operations managers of small companies.

How to network.

Personally I think I have become super good at this. After all, it has generated a lot of opportunities for me, as well as sales, and opportunity for others.

This will help me go above and beyond in any role. If I am meeting new people I am constantly getting new leads, and possible customers for the company I work with, even if I am not in a sales role.

I’ll leave it there.

To be honest I could probably go on for another 10 to 20 paragraphs. I’ll stop there because it gives you an idea of what I learned in this role, and what you could potentially learn from a similar role. If you are a hiring manager this should give you an idea of what kind of value I can bring to your company.